Average Typing Speed

For decades the standard answer to "what is the average typing speed" has been around 40 WPM. It's the figure typing teachers, HR departments and most typing sites (this one included) use as the dividing line between a slow and a capable adult typist. It describes the general population: people who type for work and email, some trained, many self-taught, nobody practicing for a test.

The biggest measured dataset tells a slightly different story. In a 2018 Aalto University study of 168,960 online typists, volunteers transcribed 15 sentences and the researchers logged every keystroke. The average came out at 51.56 WPM, with a standard deviation of 20.2 WPM. That's more than ten words per minute above the classic figure, and the reason is who took part: the average participant was 24.5 years old, 75% were aged 11 to 30, and 72% had taken a typing course. These were people who went looking for a typing test, which is exactly the crowd that types faster than average.

So a fair reading is: around 40 WPM for adults in general, low 50s for younger people who type a lot and care about it. If you're in the second group and scoring 40, you have room to grow. If you're a 50-year-old who types reports all day and scores 45, you're doing fine.

Age changes typing speed more than most people expect, but not in the direction they expect. Young adults are the fastest group because they've typed the most. In the mobile study, people aged 10 to 19 typed about 10 WPM faster than people in their 40s. Children are a different case: they're still learning where the keys are, so their numbers climb steeply year by year through school.

There is no large study that publishes an average WPM for each year of childhood, so be wary of any site that quotes one to the decimal point. We've written up realistic ranges by age, and how to read them, in our guide to typing speed by age.

Jobs don't have averages so much as thresholds: the speed below which you won't get through the screening. Postings vary, but these are the ranges you'll most often see asked for.

Two tips if you're preparing for one of these. First, employment tests nearly always report net speed, meaning errors are subtracted, so 55 WPM with sloppy accuracy can score lower than 45 WPM clean. Our guide to what WPM means explains the math. Second, rehearse at the length they'll use: the 3 minute typing test matches most office screenings, and the number typing game drills the keypad work data-entry tests are made of.

The 2018 study is useful here because it didn't just record speed, it recorded how people typed. Three findings stand out.

More fingers, more speed. Participants averaged 6.95 fingers, and 47.6% said they used nine or ten. The fastest typists used 8.4 fingers on average; the slowest used 5.3. You don't need perfect textbook touch typing, but every finger you bring into play takes load off the others.

A course alone barely moves the number. People who had taken a typing class were only about 5 WPM faster than people who hadn't. What matters is how much you type after you learn, which is why practice volume beats any single lesson.

Fast typists overlap their keystrokes. The researchers called it rollover: pressing the next key before releasing the last. The average typist did it on 25% of keystrokes; the fastest did it on 40 to 70%. It isn't something you can learn from a rule. It shows up on its own once common letter pairs become automatic, which takes repetition.

Phones are closing the gap. The mobile study measured 36.2 WPM on touchscreens, and 38 WPM for people using two thumbs, which 74% of participants did. The fastest phone typist hit 85 WPM. That puts an average phone typist only a few words per minute behind the classic 40 WPM keyboard figure. On a physical keyboard, though, the ceiling is far higher: the desktop study's fastest participants passed 120 WPM.

Averages for speed get all the attention, but the same study tracked mistakes, and the picture is reassuring. The typical participant left only 1.17% of characters wrong in the finished text, and 90% of people stayed under 2.66%. What they didn't avoid was making the mistakes in the first place: 6.3% of all keystrokes went on backspacing and retyping. In other words, the average typist is accurate in the end but pays for it in time.

That's why two people with the same raw speed can finish the same email minutes apart. If your test shows accuracy below 95%, you are almost certainly spending more time fixing than the WPM figure suggests, and cleaning up those errors is the cheapest speed gain available.

Every average above comes from a test: short passages, typed with full attention. Real typing is slower. You stop to think, you switch windows, you type names and numbers that aren't in any word list. A useful rule is that your everyday speed on documents runs several WPM below your one-minute test score, and your five-minute score is the closer estimate. Most people fade 5-15% between a one-minute and a five-minute test.

Text type matters too. Lists of common words are the easiest thing to type fast. Proper paragraphs, with capitals, commas and the odd number, usually cost a few WPM, which is why our typing speed test offers both modes. If the gap between your two scores is large, paragraph practice is where your real-world speed is hiding.

It's fair to ask why anyone still quotes 40 WPM when a study of nearly 169,000 people found 52. The answer is that 40 is closer to the right number for the people most readers are comparing themselves with: coworkers, classmates, family. Online test takers are enthusiasts. They type more, they are younger, and the ones who finished all 15 sentences of the study were the most motivated of all. So use 40 WPM as the "average person" line and the low 50s as the "people who care about typing" line, and you'll read your own score correctly.

Take the 1 minute typing test three times on different days and average the results. One run can swing by five WPM either way. Then look up your number in our what is a good typing speed chart, which shows roughly what share of typists you're ahead of at each speed. If you'd rather measure yourself against something that moves, Typing Racer has rivals fixed at 20, 35 and 50 WPM, so you'll know right away which side of average you're on.